Stonescape Lamps....

Friday, December 27, 2013

About 2 months ago I found a great end table at St. Vinnies and I got a 25% discount on the sticker price. The wood being solid oak and the legs shape are what really attracted me to it. I don't usually like glass top tables but this table only cost me $11.23 - I can live with the glass. I really liked the look of the table after getting it in my apartment, it looks like it's Cat approved too. I set Sam up on it - she sniffed around and then moved to the edge and sat down on the wood. She isn't stupid - not going to sit on what "looks like" mostly nothing and the glass was probably cold on her butt. Now I just need to figure out where to put it. After a little sanding to just the top and some lemon oil it turned out pretty good.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Here is another Stonescape Lamp made with a piece of driftwood. On this one I sanded the driftwood and gave it a light finish - it definately gave it a different look than the first driftwood lamp. 26 inches tall. Click on the picures to get a little closer look.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Still need to do some sanding/shaping. Maybe a little beeswax for a finish.....then some felt in the bottoms....or maybe just leave everything natural. Some don't like the smell of Juniper but I like it. The drawers are about 5 inches long and the ring box is about 2.5 inches in diameter. I bought the trunk/branches from Seth from Urban Lumber Company here in Springfield.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Here is a picture of the original ACEO (Artists Cards, Editions and Originals - 2.5 by 3.5 inches in size) that I just received this weekend from the very talented artist Tasha Riojas. The above picture is her "Snow Leopard Climbing Higher". Sorry, the picture doesn't do it justice but I'm lucky, I get to appreciate it in person. I love so much about this painting/drawing - the blue background makes the beautiful detail of the Snow Leopard come alive. I am not eloquent in speach enough to say what I feel about this amazing artwork. I just love it. I can't believe it's the first feline she has done....and I was lucky enough to aquire it. Thank you so much Tasha!

Saturday, December 25, 2010

I finished the new Stonescape Lamp for my brother but forgot to take a picture at mom and dads with the Northwest Salmon Shade and a trout pullchain I had purchased. The pictures above I took at my place before I picked up the salmon shade on the way up north - they are of the lamp with an elk shade I brought up too - just in case he didn't like the salmon shade. I had made a pull chain out of a crawdad lure but he still liked the trout pull better with the lamp - hey, I even removed the hooks - huh, go figure. He said he liked the lamp and also said it would go good with the glass salmons he has on his mantel that he had bought at Portland's Saturday Market - I haven't seen those yet. I asked him to take a picture of both and send them down.

It was great seeing everyone. With all the people in the house - it was roasting. Dad is turning 80 on the 30th and he is never warm enough anymore. I decided to get out of the house to cool down and go to 7-11 and get a slurpee. My youngest neice yelled out she wanted to go too. On the way there she hinted - not too subtly - that she wanted to try driving a stick shift car - which, coincidentally I was driving at the time. (Her older sister got a car financed for her for Christmas). We got a couple slurpees and some zotts for her and on the way back I stopped in a big empty parking lot off of TV Hwy and she got to drive a stick shift car for the first time, she's twelve. I remember trying my first stick shift on a truck in the middle of a field on the Fanno's farm - she did better than me. I held her slurpee and she was laughing after a while - she noticed I had sucked down most of her slurpee. I must have been a little nervous. We had some good laughs. Thinking back it did taste funny. She mixes cherry and coke - what do twelve year olds know (actually, I did that too when I was younger).

Sunday, December 12, 2010

I bought a Beautiful Original Watercolor on ebay (this picture doesn't do it justice) - A Plein ACEO Air Sketch Painting named "2 Pines" painted in the Rocky Mountain National Park by a wonderful artist by the name of Wendy Armfield. I just got it yesterday and need to make a rustic frame for it. Check out Wendy's new website for her Windy Trees Gallery - http://www.windytreesgallery.weebly.com/

Oh, and by the way if you don't know ( I had to look them up) ACEO's (Artists Cards, Editions and Originals) are works of art 2.5 by 3.5 inches - the size of playing cards - Wendy's site has a section about them. Plein is a french word for the act of painting outdoors. I'm going to enjoy this little jewel till my eyes give out but hopefully my memory will still be around. I bet I can find a place to hang it. Thanks Wendy!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Some stone I can drill through with what tools I have at this point, some I can not but I keep for the future when I will. I took a couple days off and will use some of the time making the apartment a little more zen feeling by getting rid of some things and reorganize some - my stone cairns being one such thing. I just have a pull towards stone or stone calls to me and this is the form I can work with right now so I'll keep them around - stubbed toes be damned. Besides the little hunter likes to walk/rub on them and stalk critters aka spiders if any find their way in.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Brigid - I forgot to tell you, some guy at the range (see picture) - at least I think it was a guy - was asking questions about you and some Donald character. Seems that this Donald guy is wanted ---- in a galaxy far far away. Anyway, someone has their feathers ruffled and wants to chew him out. -----------please stop me now --- doesn't Blogger have any restrictions on Boba Fett Pez posts?

He/she didn't get anything out of me - although I did ask for Princess Leia's phone #/communicator frequency.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Here is the Red Oak Wine Rack I designed and made from wood salvaged from community tree's by Urban Lumber Company. This wine rack is made for a countertop or table. It can hold 4 wine glasses, 4 wine or beverage of your choice bottles and I put a hole in the center support to hold a corkscrew.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

I was posting about the "Spring Day" shoot (it was cold, had sprinkles and hail at the end - I think the sun even made a showing. I love spring, a lot of energy in the air and the weather changes every 10 minutes. I was posting about trip out to the range and heard a commotion on the chair behind me - Sam....Samantha. Eye beams burrowing into the back of my head willing me to play "Mouse"(plastic stick with string and fur/streamers/little bell on the end)...."Mouse"...ok,ok,you need play too!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

In this day and age it seems like too many houses built today are huge and of such a quality that they have major problems not too far down the road. They also are right next to each other and no yard. I wonder how much resources we could save in the long run by building smaller and stronger. Throwing in a view wouldn't hurt either but I understand packing them in close builds a bigger tax base and they can have utilities in a smaller footprint. But a view and some grass and trees around sure is nice and the air seems fresh.

A couple building materials that I think are worth taking a look at - if not the specific company - at least the product idea. One is Structural Insulated Panels the other is Niagra Insulated Blocks. I think a key point in these two products is there is an insulation barrier sandwiched in the middle of the blocks and panels - keeping heat and cold transfer way down. The energy cost up front in manufacturing and transport seems like more but the end product would be saving energy in heating and cooling for a long time down the road.

www.niagarablock.com/products/icb

A home at the edge of the pines, maybe a daylight basement and a view of the mountains.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I was high school age and went hunting in Eastern Oregon with my dad and we joined up with friends of the family in deer camp at Dead Horse Spring. At the end of the morning hunt I was walking a dry creek bed that came down from the rimrock draws and lost itself out in the high desert prairie. In that region of Oregon you'll see obsidian around....it isn't uncommon but it isn't covering everything either. I saw a little piece of obsidian in the dry sand, reached down picking it up....it just kept coming out of the creek bed! Someone that knows about such things told me that it was probably Paiute and probably ceremonial - since the Paiute of the area used tougher stone for hunting. I wondered back then and through the years about the maker of that spearhead. I've pictured the landscape of that day in my mind and thought about what their lives were like and how the spearhead came to it's final resting place. After many years I delivered the spearhead to the Burns Oregon Paiute Tribe. I showed them on a map where it was found.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Here is a rustic shelf I made out of Aromatic Cedar. I purchased the wood from Seth at the Urban Lumber Company in Springfield Oregon. I have a very small apartment. This shelf gave me a little more floor space - every little bit helps.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Pinus Densiflora/ Japanese Red Pine

There is a row of these along the drive coming in to the apartments I live in. They have a red bark that glows in the early or late sun. The branches contort and give the trees a unique look - especially when grouped with others. There is a small beautiful grove at the Hoyt Arboretum in Portland Oregon.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Eastern Oregon - Catch The Wave!

I was driving from Cove Oregon heading towards LaGrande and had to pull over to try and get a few pictures of this Snow Cloud cascading from the sky. I only had a little 35mm camera but a couple pictures did turn out. It was Spring and snow squalls and beautiful blue skies were the order of the day!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

This is a big carving I did. I can't take creative honors for this one. About 7 years ago I was taking a winter walk up on top of Mount Tabor in Portland Oregon. It was just after a storm and I always check out downed wood. Park employees had bucked up some of the wood and I was looking it over when I saw a wedge with an outline in the grain. What I saw was a face outlined in the wood. Just following the line in the grain and with a little more work - the Man in the Moon or at least the Man in the Moonish Shaped Wood was revealed.